Lian Li PC-A79 Aluminum Chassis Review

Introduction

Lian Li are legends in the PC chassis industry, not only are they famed for their high precession construction and relentless use of aluminium, but also for their huge range of products that support the more extreme end of the PC industry. While sure they make a few mITX cases, as well as some crazy and fun specialist cases, their real speciality are the big chassis suitable for workstations, rendering rigs and extreme performance computing in general.

The chassis we are taking a look at today is undoubtedly aimed at the more extreme end of the market and while many may interpret that as “ultimate gaming rig”, that is only one definition of extreme. This chassis is built to take anything from an mATX motherboard to a dual socket workstation board, huge amounts of storage, lots of expansion cards, lots of fans and just a lot of high-end components in general.

At £299 it isn’t exactly cheap but as you can see from the specifications below you do get some pretty impressive compatibility, not to mention the fact that the huge chassis is made of high quality, light weight aluminium. This maybe a retail product, but it is far from consumer grade tech, and it’s not even close to the sort of prices you would expect to pay for your usual high-end chassis product.

Specifications:

Full tower chassis

(W) 230mm

(H) 618mm

(D) 596mm

Front bezel Material Aluminum

Side Panel Aluminum

Body Material Aluminum

Net Weight 9.9 kg

5.25″ drive bay (External) 12

3.5″ drive bay (External) None

3.5″ HDD x9

2.5″ HDD x8

Expansion Slot 11

Motherboard HPTX

E-ATX

XL-ATX

ATX

Micro-ATX

System Fan (Front) 120mm Fan x3

System Fan (Rear) 120mm Fan x1

System Fan (Top) 120mm Fan x2 (Optional)

or 140mm Fan x2 (Optional)

System Fan (Side) 120mm Fan x2

I/O Ports USB3.0 x 4

e-SATA x1

HD Audio

Maximum Compatibility VGA Card length: 350mm

PSU length: 350mm

CPU cooler height: 165mm

ATX PSU (Optional)

Gross Weight 12kg

The packaging features a clear image of the chassis as well as some smaller pictures that detail the finer features, these include USB 3.0 support, slide out HDD mounts and air filters.

In the box I found a stack of screw on hard drive handles, a multi-language installation guide, a USB 3.0 to 2.0 converter, a huge amount of high quality screws, including motherboard thumbscrews, rubber mounting washers and a handy plastic container to store any extra screws. There is enough fittings here to fully install a dual socket motherboard a full compliment of storage and add-in cards.

Agreed, but they’re designed to help you slide it under your desk and pull it back out again rather than wheel around the office. But yeah, four wheels would have been sweet, or at least a logical gripping point to lift the front end up easier.

Skidmarks

I only mentioned it because those front feet look ugly and horribly out of place on such a sleek design. Then again I haven’t seen this chassis in the flesh (metal) yet.